W. G. Runciman (1934–2020)

This set of essays is interesting mainly because the author is good at presenting clear arguments. Their subject matter unfortunately reflects the fact that they were written in the 1960's: there's too much marxism and the theory of democracy only makes a small cameo appearance as the oligarchic theory of political parties. This serves as a good reminder of the insights that have been made in political theory in the past 60 years. The analyses presented in this book are not necessarily outdated, but they are uninteresting. I wish the author would have rewritten the whole thing in the 2000s.… (more)

I can remember reading Plato's Republic and Marx's Capital and laughing out loud over the absurdity of some of their arguments. I could never manage a complete reading of Leviathan due to its overbearing religiosity. The author of this short book asks what the arguments presented in the Republic, Leviathan and the Communist Manifesto really amount to. He shows that the clearly fail if they are tested as sociological theories of how society actually works or how it could work. The categorization the author reaches at the end of the book is that all three aim to show that "if only this were to come about, how much better a place the world would be!". This seems to be a sensible interpretation, and it certainly makes you wonder if their classical status in political philosophy is undeserved.… (more)